EU may review trade with Israel over Gaza

With concerns mounting about the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza, EU foreign ministers in Brussels yesterday edged closer to endorsing a review of the bloc’s trade relations with Israel, but not all were agreed. Announcing that the European Commission would review the free trade pact that governs political and economic relations between the two, EU foreign affairs chief Kaja Kallas called Israel’s decision to allow some humanitarian aid to enter Gaza after an 11-week-long blockade as a “drop in the ocean” given the “catastrophic” situation there. Dismissing her statement as “a total misunderstanding of the complex reality Israel is facing”, the country’s Foreign Ministry applauded the ten EU member states that had not backed the EU review. 

Tuesday, the UN said it had been given the go-ahead to send 100 truckloads of aid into Gaza, whereas, in the past, it had pointed out that 500 trucks of aid and commercial goods were needed daily. In March, Israel had tightened restrictions on humanitarian access after a temporary truce with Hamas collapsed.

Last month, the EU announced a three-year financial package of support for Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. Worth up to €1.6 billion, Kallas stressed that this support needed to find its way in. “It is European money funding this aid, and it must reach the people”, she said.

The meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels comes on the heels of a statement by the leaders of France, the UK and Canada condemning Israel’s latest offensive in Gaza. In it, they described the aid restrictions as “wholly disproportionate” and possibly in breach of international humanitarian law. They warned of “further concrete actions” should humanitarian access not be restored without specifying what might happen.

Some EU member states, notably Spain, Ireland, the Netherlands and France, have called for a formal review of the bloc’s trade relations with Israel. Article 2 of the EU-Israel Association Agreement allows for it to be suspended in cases of serious human rights violations. “Once [human rights] violations are established, then the [accord] can be suspended”, France’s Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said yesterday in Paris. 

Interviewed by DW, Hugh Lovatt, a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, noted that Israel had long benefited “from a sense of exceptionalism within the EU and was protected by political sensitivities” that had shielded it “from the full application of international and EU law”.

He accused the EU of having engaged “in double standards” with regard to Israel. Applying Article 2 of the EU-Israel Association Agreement was not only legally justified but long overdue, he claimed, pointing out that the EU had used similar legal tools “at least 26 times” in the past in response to human rights breaches by other countries.

James Moran, a former EU ambassador to the Middle East and currently a senior fellow at the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS), told DW  that internal rifts over Israel’s actions in Gaza had effectively sidelined the EU, leaving it “politically paralysed”.

Since October 2023, EU members such as Germany, Austria, Hungary and the Czech Republic have strongly supported Israel’s right to self-defence and have been hesitant to endorse any punitive measures. Other EU member states, however, Ireland, Belgium, Spain, and more recently France, for example, have voiced their frustration about Israel’s military operations in Gaza and the ongoing humanitarian crisis there. Last year, Norway, Ireland and Spain all formally recognised the statehood of Palestine, and France and Belgium may soon do the same. On Tuesday, Spain’s Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares called for sanctions against Israel and urged the EU to act decisively to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe.

Back to Hugh Lovatt in his DW interview: “For too long, the EU has relied on the Oslo process as a political crutch….But that process is effectively dead. Continuing to pretend otherwise only undermines European interests.” Gaza is a test of European credibility as a global actor. “If the EU cannot respond here, where its own laws, values and interests are all at stake, then where can it? “